Bird Flu

There were four tanker trucks, a number of service vehicles and a gaggle of people wandering around in haz-mat suits seven miles east of us on highway 40 yesterday.  Bird flu has come to call in the neighborhood. 

We are told that we can be told to keep our chickens inside.  We wait for that to happen and will report it if it does.  Meanwhile, it seems like a Laurel and Hardy episode, doesn't it?  Bird flu, as is nearly always so, breaks out in confined flocks.  Something outside is blamed.  Usually it has been our "backyard flocks" kept by us to provide decent eggs to eat.  This time it is the wild ducks.  And what is the industry's solution?  Confine the backyard flocks!  Yeah, that'll work.  If the flu savages confined birds, lets confine a few more.  Next I suppose we will hear plans to decimate the wild duck populations!

Just a few contrary thoughts.  Our yard chickens have had closer and more regular contact with the wild ducks on this low farm than any confinement bird.  Yet it has been nearly a year since we lost one other than the occasional hawk victim.  Also, where are the large piles of dead wild ducks?  If there aren't any, why not?  Could it be that something in the way a wild duck lives, (or a "backyard chicken") offers a certain strength against infection?  And if that is true, what does it say for our current "wisdom" in the area of animal agriculture?  Aren't we looking at a strong indication that while we continue to confine dairy cows, 8000 at a time, or sows at 5000 head, and put all chickens and turkeys under roof, we are pursuing a system that doesn't work?  Is old Mother Nature striking back?  A good strong agriculture, one not afraid to hear criticism, would be considering these thoughts. 

That is the problem.  We do not have a good strong agriculture.  We have a fearful and weak one.

Jim